Half a Century, Two Midlife Crises

Today is my fiftieth birthday. Apparently this is when I’m supposed to have a midlife crisis. But I’ve already had my midlife crisis. Two, in fact, if we’re going to be liberal with the definition, though neither is the conventional kind.

My first was twenty-one years ago, just over midway through my life so far. This was when my books were notoriously banned as being heretical by 24 of the “Gedolim” of the charedi world. Up until that point, I thought that the charedi world represented traditio...